Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (8 December 65 BC-27 November 8 BC) known in English as Horace, was a Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus who was famous for his writing of the Odes and for being the world's first autobiographer.

Biography
Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born in Venusia, Italia, Roman Republic on 8 December 65 BC, descended from a Sabine captured in the Samnite Wars. He started his life as a slave, and he later gained his freedom and improved his social position. Horatius became a tax collector, and he was educated in Rome and Athens. He enrolled in the Academy in Athens, acquiring a familiarity with Greek lyric poetry. During his time in Athens, he was recruited into Marcus Junius Brutus' army, and he served as an officer in the republican army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. However, he befriended Maecenas, Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, and he became a spokesman for the new regime. He crafted elegant hexameter verses in his Satires and Epistles and caustic iambic poetry in his Epodes, and his Odes were regarded by the rhetorician Quintilian as the only Latin lyrics worth reading. He tutored a young Claudius before he became Roman emperor, and he died in 8 BC.